Back-to-school savings pile up

You may be basking in the last few weeks of summer and counting down to Labor Day getaways, but for retailers, it was time to go back to school a month ago.

That's when many of them started promotions for one of the biggest shopping periods of the year -- one that's also become perhaps the most prolonged shopping period of the year, with families buying back-to-school items from practically the Fourth of July until after classes start.

Deloitte's annual back-to-school shopping survey out last month found that more than a quarter of parents plan to finish their shopping after the start of the school year.

"We're seeing it expanded out throughout the season," says Steve Bratspies, executive vice president of general merchandise for Wal-Mart.

He says customers are shopping more frequently and making smaller basket purchases over a longer period of time rather than doing one huge buy.

And that means stores are throwing absurdly cheap prices — think 17-cent notebooks — and price-matching guarantees at customers in an effort to stay relevant and competitive over three months of back-to-school shopping.

• Staples is offering a 110 percent price match: If a customer finds a product cheaper somewhere else, Staples will match the price plus give the customer back 10 percent of the difference. And those 17-cent notebooks are part of a list of items at low prices for the entire shopping season. Rulers, glue, paper, colored pencils, erasers, crayons, ballpoint pens and markers are all on sale for less than a dollar through Labor Day.

• Wal-Mart has 30 percent more back-to-school items available online than last year and is reducing prices on 10 percent more back-to-school items than last year, online and in stores. This month, a price-matching program rolled out storewide. It lets customers enter an ID code listed on their store receipt at Walmart.com and compare prices of everything they bought to all advertised prices from that week. If Wal-Mart's prices prove more expensive, it will refund the difference in the form of an e-gift card.

• Old Navy, already known for its steep back-to-school promotions, has T-shirts starting at $4 and jeans starting at $8.

"We obviously started early," says Jamie Gersch, vice president of marketing. "And then want to make sure we stay relevant through Labor Day." The retailer started back-to-school deals in mid-July.

• Sears is trying to make shopping more enticing by expanding in-store pickup across both Sears and Kmart stores. Customers can order items on Kmart.com but pick them up at a Sears, and vice versa. Sears customers don't even have to get out of the car if they opt for in-vehicle pickup for online orders.

The National Retail Federation expects families to spend $670 on average during the back-to-school season, up five percent over last year, on supplies, clothes and electronics.

Retailers are also sympathizing with teachers, who are increasingly paying for classroom supplies with their own money, by luring them with extra discounts. Wal-Mart has a 10 percent discount for teachers throughout the season.

Staples had a teacher appreciation weekend the first weekend of August — teachers who are rewards members got 25 percent off — and the company donated $1 million to Donors Choose, an organization that helps teachers pay for supplies.

Retailers are pushing a longer shopping season and earlier-than-ever deals to try to get customers to buy more over a longer period of time, says Mark LoCastro, spokesman for DealNews, which tracks price and discount trends across the Web.